Nightmares and Hell Dimensions
by Candra 'wolfgal97
Summary: Dawn has nightmares... someone is there for her. Episode tags to: Shadow, Blood Ties, Forever, Intervention, Weight of the World, and the Gift. Spoilers? Yes.
1. Chapter 1

**Moments in season five where Dawn has bad dreams and someone is there for her. Because if I was her, I'd be flipping out all the time with all that crazy stuff going on.**

**I don't own Buffy. Joss does. It's not fair.**

**Episode Tag: Shadow**

Nightmares and Hell Dimensions

Chapter One

The beast darted towards me, slithering on it's belly. I screamed a nerve-racking sound, but no one came to my defense. No Giles pulled my gangly body away from those white fangs. No Buffy got between me and the monster that seemed to crave my flesh. No spell from Willow to deflect the killer blow that was coming my way.

Instead, the snake-like creature struck at me, it's jaws opening wide to swallow me whole. I managed to croak out one last wail as the damp, darkness of it's mouth swallowed me whole.

I sat up in bed, faintly aware of a ringing sound resonating through my bedroom. It took me a second to wake up from my terrified state to realize that it had been me that made that sound. I had been screaming. I just hopped that I hadn't woken-

Mom came bursting into my room, wearing her blue night gown and pink fluffy slippers. "Dawnie, are you okay?" she asked, concern etched all over her face.

I nodded, still catching my breath. "I'm okay, Mom. It was just a bad dream."

She came and sat on my bed with me, her legs hanging off the side. I put my back against the headboard, pulling my knees to my chest. It took everything I had to keep from flinging myself at my mom, trying to get closer to her. Somehow, she made everything bad go away.

I thought she looked a little hurt in her eyes when I didn't go to her like I use to when I was a kid. But that was a long time ago, I hadn't had a bad dream since Dad… since Dad wasn't there, anymore. Other than that, nothing had effected me enough to give me a nightmare. Nothing Buffy had fought before scared me enough because they usually left me alone. That snake thing today didn't.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mom asked.

At first, I thought about saying no. I mean, who wants to listen to someone whine about something that only happed in their dreams? But then, I knew Mom would be upset if I didn't show her that I trusted her with my feelings. I took a deep breath to calm myself before I started.

"It was bad dream about what happened today at the Magic Box. You know, that big snake thing that came after us today? We'll, in my dream, it was coming after me like it did today. Only in my dream, no one helped me. I just… froze up! Like, I couldn't move, I was so scared. All I could do was stand there and scream like an idiot while it ate me."

Mom opened up her arms to me, inviting me in for a hug. I pounced on her and snuggled as close as I could get to her, like she was a life line in a sea of monsters. I rested my head on her shoulder, taking in her warm comfort.

"Dawn, I know your sister has scary things that happens in her life and I know it's not fair that sometimes you have to experience them, too. But never doubt the fact that you are loved. Never. Just like today. No one let that beast touch you. You're here and it was taken care of. Buffy, Mr. Giles, Willow, Tara, Xander and even Spike would protect you."

I smiled at that. "Mom, the evil vampire wouldn't want to help me."

She grinned back. "He would if he wants hot cocoa with little marshmallows. Besides, Spike isn't as bad as he used to be. I know he's not good, but he really isn't evil, either."

"Yeah, that's true," I agreed. "Besides, I think he secretly likes me."

"I think it's more than a secret. And you also have me. I'll always be there for you. Even if I'm not there and something scary happens, know that I'll always take care of you." She ran her fingers through my hair and I leaned into her touch. I knew I was blessed to have her.

I don't know what I would do without my mommy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Moments in season five where Dawn has bad dreams and someone is there for her. Because if I was her, I'd be flipping out all the time with all that crazy stuff going on.**

**I don't own Buffy. Joss does. It's not fair.**

**Episode Tag: Blood Ties**

Nightmares and Hell Dimensions

Chapter Two

A key. I'm a key that will open up hell. And I have a crazy chick named Glory looking for me. This is just great.

At least she didn't know what she was looking for. Before the guys showed up and Willow sent her away, she told me that she didn't know where it was or even what it was. For now, I was safe. As long as she doesn't find out, I'll be okay.

I crawled into the bed and pulled the covers over my head, blocking out the rest of the world. I must've fallen asleep because before I knew it, I was in the hospital again. I sat on a counter, away from Glory. Now that I knew how badly she wanted the key, I was more afraid of her than ever. Still, I knew not to show it.

"Maybe you can help me find my key," Glory asked, hopefully.

"What's it look like?" I asked, trying to play along. Maybe I could get this dream to play out the way today had. If I held her off long enough, maybe Buffy would come to get me.

"The last time I saw it, it was the most beautiful green ball of energy that you've ever seen! In fact, it was almost exactly the same color of your eyes…"

My mouth ran dry, and I wanted to shut my eyes to get rid of the incriminating evidence of what I am. "Thank you?" I didn't know what to do, so I just stood there.

I started to get a bad feeling when a sickly sweet smile spread over the woman's face. "Hunny, I think you know something about my key. In fact," she trailed off to walk over to me. She grasped my hand, forcing me to look at it, "I think you know everything about my key."

Where pale flesh had been, my hand had become transparent. The outline of my arm was only shown by a deep, forest green minty color. I looked Glory in the eye, terrified of what I would find there. They were black and peering into my very soul with a greedy look.

"Well, well, well. It's little sister. Isn't this… cute." With that, she pulled a blade out from behind her back and shoved it into my shoulder…

…The shoving on my shoulder continued. "Dawn? Wake up, Dawn! Wake up!"

My eyes fluttered open to see Buffy looming about me. Her hands gripped my shoulders as she shook me awake. "Buffy? W-what do you want?"

"What I want is for my little sister to sleep the night through without having a bad dream!"

I realized she was right. I'd been having a lot of bad dreams lately. "it's not exactly my fault! My sister's the Slayer and I'm a key to open up hell! You honestly think I can control what I dream about?"

Buffy looked startled, like she hadn't even thought about it before. "I guess you can't. I'm sorry, Dawn." She sat down on the bed next to me and I scooted over for her to have some more room. "I just want you to be okay. I love you more than anything."

"Even though I'm a key and not really your sister?"

She smiled. "Just because you're a key doesn't make you not my sister. I told you today. You blood is mine."

I couldn't even describe how important to me it was that she felt that way. Even though I'm a key, I still feel like a normal person. I feel like I'm any other teenager. Well, other than the fact my sister is a Slayer, I have two witch friends and my newest crush is a vampire. But other than that, I'm normal!

"Thanks, Buffy. I needed that."

She kissed me on the forehead. "I know," she said softly. "I used to have bad dreams, too. You know, when I found out that I was the Slayer? I used to have dreams that the vampires would come stake me!"

"Really? I remember that, I think. I always thought it was just you being weird."

"Hey!" She smacked my arm hard enough to sting, but it didn't really hurt. Buffy smiled and kissed where she smacked me. "Just because I love you," she said. "Now go back to sleep!"

She left after that, leaving me alone in my room. I got up and went to the window. I pulled the blinds up and went to unlock it when I saw something glowing in the dark outside. I strained my eyes to see what it was, and when my eyes focused to be able to see in the dark, I could tell that it was the butt of a cigarette.

I know only one person who smokes. A person with ice blue eyes that happened to be starring at me. I took the dare in his eyes and opened the window to talk to him. "Here to spy on my sister?"

"I'm here to keep an eye on my girls. All of them, Nibblet. Now get back in bed where tasty little things like you belong at this hour."

I grinned at the vampire. "Love you, too, Spike. Thanks."

I closed the window, locked it, left the blinds up, and got in bed. The whole time, my eyes stayed on that ember, letting me know that my guardian vampire was there keeping an eye on me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Moments in season five where Dawn has bad dreams and someone is there for her. Because if I was her, I'd be flipping out all the time with all that crazy stuff going on.**

**I don't own Buffy. Joss does. It's not fair.**

**Episode Tag: Intervention and Tough Love(WARNING: Mentions of torture.)**

**Nightmares and Hell Dimensions**

**Chapter Three**

"Nibblet! Nibblet, wake up!"

My eyes flashed open, but I could still hear the scream escaping from my throat.

The first thing I could focus on was the battered and bruised face of my best friend, Spike. I knew the wounds would be gone in a few days due to his vampire healing abilities, but it was my fault he was so hurt in the first place.

I felt the tears coming now and I didn't have the strength to hold them back. They trickled down my face, dripping off my chin. Spike looked worried and tried to hold me, but I backed away as his hand came out to touch me.

I didn't want to hug him because I knew it would hurt him more. I knew that his whole body had suffered because of me and that his chest had to look like a massacre had happened there, too. I couldn't cause him any more pain.

"Dawn, what's with you?" he asked, dropping his pet name for me. I knew he was serious.

"Nothing," I lied, trying to protect him from the grim truth about my dream.

He growled deep in his chest like only a demon could, but it wasn't at me. It was more in frustrated way. "Don't you dare lie to me. Just because I'm the pet vampire doesn't mean you can out right lie to my face."

More guilt kicked in. Spike deserved to know about my nightmares, but if I told him, I was worried that he would be upset with himself, though he hadn't done anything wrong. I sighed. Spike had asked me to be truthful with him, so I would be.

Still trembling from the remnant memories of the dream, I wiped my sleeve across my face, clearing away the tears. I licked my lips, trying to choke the words out.

"It was just a bad dream, Spike. It's not important."

His blue eyes found mine and held them. "If something's bothering you, it's important. YOU'RE important, Nibblet."

I sniggered out a cynical chuckle. "I don't see why. I never asked to be a key, Spike. But I am. It's all I am."

He didn't say anything for a minute. Instead, he very slowly sat down on the ground next to me. He gritted his teeth against the pain his mending ribs caused him as he bent to settle down. Hands resting on his knees, he stared into space in front of him.

"You are more than a key, Dawn," he said finally. "You are precious to both your sister and me. We would do anything for you."

I looked up to him, tears threatening to fall at the corner of my eyes again. Brown found blue and I knew I could tell him anything and everything.

"Why?" I asked. Why was this happening to me? Why did he care so much? Why would he die for me in a heartbeat that he didn't have?

He shrugged, a wry grin slipping into place, hindered by the split in his lip. "Because I love you, Nibblet. I really do. I've always been a sucker for the girls I love and you've got me wrapped around that little finger of yours, you have."

I almost smiled for a second, enjoying the love. But it was ruined by Spike's next question.

"So you wanna tell me what your nightmare was about or are you going to leave me hanging?"

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. I knew I had to tell him. It would hurt his feelings if I didn't and I couldn't do that to him. I rubbed my eyes, trying to find an excuse to not look at him.

"It was one of the most horrible nightmares I've ever had," I mumbled.

I felt a cold hand on my shoulder, longer fingers playing with my hair.

"About?" the deep british accent asked.

"Glory."

The fingers stopped moving. The hand was gone and an arm had wrapped around my back, pulling me to his side. I could smell years of tobacco, smoke, and leather on his coat, making scent that was purely Spike. It comforted me instantly.

"She... she..." I couldn't go on, but he needed me to.

"You can tell me anything, Nibblet. What did she do?"

In a tiny whisper that he had to strain even his vampire hearing to catch, I told him, "She hurt you."

He was stone still for a moment and didn't say anything. Finally, cool fingers cupped under my chin and forced me to look up at him. Pain was all over his face, making all the little cuts under his eyes look deeper.

"I told you, Dawn, I'm fine. In a day or two, with some blood, it'll just be a memory. A bad one, yes, but just that. It's just a few cuts and bruises," he assured her.

But he was lying. The other night, after Buffy had found out Spike hadn't told Glory my name, she'd gone back to patch him up as a "thank you" to the vampire. When Buffy'd come home, I'd asked her how bad off he was. She'd been reluctant to say, but eventually, she told me he was pretty bad. Lots of bruises and cuts, yes, but there were broken bones, internal bleeding and apparently a rather large hole in his chest that had gone down to the lung.

He wasn't fine, and we both knew it. I frowned at him. "Now who's the liar?" I asked.

"Well I wouldn't be lying when I say it was worth it."

I wanted to break down, but I didn't. He was here and I was safe. "Spike, I see it every time I close my eyes. I don't know what she did to you, so I keep imagining it. I can't sleep at night because every time I do, I see her torturing you in a hundred different ways."

He squeezed me impossibly closer to him. "What do you want from me, Dawn? How can I make it better?"

I looked up at him, searching his sad eyes before telling him, "I need you to tell me what happened."

"No," he said firmly.

"Please, Spike! I know it'll be hard on you, but I wouldn't ask unless I NEEDED it. Please, Spike, tell me. Make the bad dreams go away."

His jaw was tight, the bones sharp and prominent. I knew it was going to cost him a bit of his pride to tell me what happened, but unless I knew the truth, I was never going to sleep through a whole night.

He sighed through his nose and ran a hand through his his platinum blond hair. It was slightly curly, not plastered down to his head like it usually was. Probably because he lacked the energy to style it to his typical standards.

"If I tell you some things," he said slowly, "it'll be the bare bones of what happened. You don't need to hear about everything that happened with her. It's... it's not pretty Nibblet."

I nodded, letting him know I understood. He leaned back, putting his weight on his arms, relaxing as he did so. I knew he wasn't comfortable doing this, but as he had said before, he would do anything for me.

"Well, I guess it all started when the whelp showed up at my crypt."

"He let them take you?" I asked, seething. If Xander had-

"No, not really. He'd gotten his arse handed to him, so there wasn't much he could do."

"Oh."

"I held them off as long as I could, but there were so many of them. And the little buggers are strong. I've never even heard a kind of demon like that."

"After that, they took me to Glory," Spike continued. "She wasn't too happy to see me. Her little pets thought I was the Key, but she knew I wasn't. She said that the Key was pure and my being a vampire isn't exactly pure."

I gulped for air. They'd been looking for me?

"So she decided to see if I knew who the key was. I said I didn't, Buffy showed up, end of story," he finished lamely.

"Uh-uh," I told him, squeezing his hand. I had forgotten about his broken finger and he hissed in pain. "Oh! Sorry! See, this is why you have to tell me more than that! I have no idea where or how hurt you are. And don't you tell me you're fine because that's not true and we both know it."

He sighed, but nodded. "Fine." He pointed gruffly at his eye that had deep cuts surrounding it. Both were black, but his right one was worse. "That would be her left," he said bluntly, trying to ignore the obvious pain in my eyes. I knew he had been left feeling weak after what had happened, but I, on the other hand, had never known anyone stronger.

Long, pale fingers ghosted over the round cut on the edge of his mouth. "That was from having a glass shoved in my face."

He looked expectantly at me, asking if I was satisfied. I wasn't. He knew. He saw my unwavering gaze. Rolling his eyes, he shrugged off his duster, wincing as sore muscles ached with the motion.

He pulled the edge of his well-fitted black shirt up, exposing raw, black and blue skin around his ribs. They had to all be broken. In fact, you could see little nubs under his flesh where they had previously been broken and had healed latter. I wondered if Spike had once ever been unscathed or if he'd just been born with broken bones.

"What did that?" I asked, partly afraid to find out.

He shrugged. "Kicks, punches, falling down an elevator shaft. That probably did it."

I felt guilty again. The way he spoke sounded like it wasn't a big deal, but it had been. I owed this man my life and he was making light of it. I wanted to reach out and do something, anything, to let him know how much I appreciated him.

I didn't really want to look, but I couldn't help but drink in the horrid sight of a deep wound higher up on his chest. Gently, I stroked the angry, red indent in his skin. "And that?" I asked.

"Knife," he rumbled deeply.

I could feel tears coming again, but I put on my cold, controlled mask and refused to let them out. My fingers moved on over to a raw looking round wound. "What happened here?"

He let his shirt fall back into place, obstructing my view of the wounds he bore for me. "Nibblet," he said softly, "I think that's enough."

So it was bad.

"Tell me," I begged.

"Don't make me," Spike whispered, haunted memories filling his mind.

I had seen some gory stuff on TV before, but seeing real torture wounds on someone I care about? My best friend? It was too painful.

"Please? Tell me?"

This was breaking him. I knew I had no right to ask this much of him when he'd already given me so much, but he just couldn't know how unimaginably guilty I felt about what had happened to him.

My eyes followed the red dots up his pale arms. I knew without asking what had caused those. A girl who used to go to school with me had scars like that. She had an abusive father who smoked. Though he was eventually put in jail, the girl wasn't around to know about it.

"She found my smokes in my pocket. Thought she'd put 'em to use." he said quietly.

I shivered. How could he be so calm? How does he act like nothing happened? How did he live through something like this and move on so quickly? I couldn't do it.

I pulled his arm around me slowly so I wouldn't hurt him. I leaned into his side, just reminding myself that he was still here and that I hadn't lost him. My eyes were threatening to close, but I wouldn't let them. I didn't want to dream again.

"Her finger."

I looked at the vampire, but his gaze wouldn't meet mine. "What?"

"The hole you asked about. It was her finger."

I thought I was going to be sick. The hell goddess had stuck her FINGER into him? So that's what had punctured his lung.

Glory was going to pay. I couldn't do anything about it, but I knew Buffy was upset about what had happened, too. Eventually, Glory was gonna die.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Sorry?" Spike asked. "What are you sorry for?"

"You got hurt because of me."

Spike growled and in a flash, he was on his knees in front of me, gripping my shoulders and gazing into my eyes.

"Listen to me," he said slowly. "You didn't do anything to hurt me. You did nothing wrong, so none of what happened was your fault. Don't you bloody be sorry for anything."

"I put you in danger, Spike! You got hurt keeping me safe."

"And I chose to do it," he argued. "And I would do it all over again."

"You don't get it, do you?" I asked. "Right now, my being here has put you in harms way. What if Glory found out about me and came here? What would you do?"

A light burned like an icy fire in his blue eyes. "I would fight her," he said solemnly.

"And how are you going to do that?" I challenged. "You're already jacked up. How are you going to fight as messed up as you are, huh?"

"You say I don't get it, but I think it's you, Platelet, that doesn't understand," the vampire said in a dark tone. "Yes, I may not be in top shape now, but I've been worse than this before thanks to my precious poof of a grandsire. Still, I'm a vampire. I'm not a man, Dawn, no matter how much you like to imagine that I'm not dangerous anymore. I'm not human. I don't have breaking points. I'm a demon, Dawn. Never forget that. But never forget that I love you. If Glory came here now, I would fight her. I would probably lose, but I would fight her to keep you safe until she killed me."

I didn't know what to say. Spike loved me like a little sister. I knew he would do anything for me. Still, hearing that he would die for me while after being almost tortured to death by the person who could do it bothered me a lot.

So, finally, I decided to ask, "What will make you heal faster?"

Spike shrugged, his carefree, bad-boy image back in place. His tone had even returned to normal. "Blood. REst. That's about it. With that, I'll be fine in a few days."

"You need blood?" I asked, eyes darting to my wrist, the idea forming in my head.

He figured it out too fast, though. "No, Dawn. I don't need your blood. Packaged will do the job just as well. Don't even think about it.

"But fresh would be best." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, but not yours. Never yours. I couldn't do that. I won't do that."

I nodded in understanding, Though I wanted to do something to help him heal faster, I had pushed him too much already. Instead, I leaned over and kissed his sharp cheek bone. "I love you, Spike. You're my best friend."

"Anything for you, Nibblet. Never forget that."


End file.
